Saturday Night Live syndrome

PSYCHOLOGY

A term that dignifies the nostalgia and sense of loss that an audience or fan base has when a TV programme–e.g., Saturday Night Live*, sport–e.g., cycling, or other field of endeavour undergoes changes over time that purists feel are catastrophic or substantially compromise the programme’s quality.

*The name obtains from the original 1975 cast of Saturday Night Live, a NYC-based comedy troupe that included such comic luminaries as John Belushi (1949-1982), Chevy Chase (1943–), Bill Murray (1950–), Steve Martin (1945–), Gilda Radner (1946-1989), Jane Curtin (1947–), Dan Aykroyd (1952–) and others. While this term fills a lexical void, it is clearly not a syndrome.